It’s the use of digital technology to contact, inform, and mobilize a group of concerned people around an issue or cause (x).

Examples of digital advocacy

Facebook Likes

Twitter Retweets

Photo tagging

Blogging about a cause or organization

Sharing events on social media

Personal recommendations (through Facebook, Google, etc)

Linking to a website or blog content

Positive comments on posts, pictures, or videos

Digital advocacy is often used to talk about large social media campaigns, such as fundraisers or to mobilize around a political or social issue. However, it’s much more than that. Digital advocacy is becoming an important facet of day-to-day support for nonprofit organizations.

Many people do not have the socioeconomic freedom to give, donate, or volunteer regularly. Online, or digital, advocacy is one way for individuals to offer support.

Social media is also a great way for community building and interaction –so tweeting, blogging, and Facebook posting are valuable ways to show support for an organization.

What exactly makes digital advocacy so valuable?

The Power of Testimonials and Engaged Support
Testimonials are an important resource for nonprofits. Testimonials inform people about what your organization does,how it affects the community, and why it is valuable. Even more importantly, digital advocacy allows for unsolicited testimonials and can extend outside of an organization’s immediate reach.

Free and Effective Community Outreach
Digital Advocacy can be an excellent form of community outreach. Having online support from community members, nonprofit professionals, emerging leaders, and even business owners is free and effective community outreach.

Having online support from community members can be an incredibly effective way of creating strong community bonds.

Authentic Marketing
While Facebook ads and regular social media posts help nonprofits market fundraisers and events, there’s no real substitute for a friend telling you to check out an event or organization. Having community members who are excited about your organization share a Facebook event can help marketing campaigns tremendously.

There is no singular way to effectively utilize social media. Every organization has to find ways to capture and engage their specific audiences.

While many nonprofits use email as the primary form on communication, social media is rapidly taking its place. Why? Because social media allows for more engaged and personal communication.

Many organizations are creating and implementing social media policies. A social media policy is a document that contains strategies and guidelines for your organization’s social media presence. These policies can be especially beneficial when multiple employees or volunteers share social media management duties.

Regardless of if your organization has a social media policy, it should have some type of social media strategy.

When creating a social media strategy it is important to keep it simple and direct. Focusing on engagement, frequency, and visuals when writing social media posts can drastically improve your organization’s social media presence.

Engagement

Social Media isn’t a one-way street—communication has to go both ways.

When writing social media posts, it is vital to remember that you are doing more than marketing. Social media should be used for more meaningful, and individual, interactions. This can be as simple as liking Facebook posts or tweets from friends and followers or quickly replying to comments on your organization’s social media pages.

Tip #1 : Use push notifications on your smartphone or internet browser to stay current with your organization’s social media interactions

Frequency

It’s important to maintain a presence while not overloading your connections with posts and information.

There’s no perfect number of social media updates to post per week. The most important thing is to post regularly without overloading your audience. Posting once per day on popular social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter is becoming expected from all organizations and businesses. However, it’s important to note that every post does not need to be published on every site (i.e. every Facebook picture doesn’t need to be shared on Twitter or LinkedIn)

Visuals

Remember to make your posts visually interesting!

Including pictures or info graphs is a great attention grabber. Too much text can be boring and easy to overlook. Further, adding photos of employees, volunteers, or events can be a wonderful way to engage your organization’s online community.

Tip #3 : Create a file of “extra” photos to share with text posts or by themselves

There are 10 basic responsibilities of nonprofit boards, beginning with determining a mission and ending with enhancing the organization’s public standing. Fulfilling these basic responsibilities is essential to creating and maintaining both an effective board and a successful organization.

With the growing importance of social media, nonprofit organizations have had to create new, more effective ways for board members to enhance the organization’s public standing.

Having engaged board members sharing and representing your organization on social media is beneficial in a number of ways. First, it allows for individual board members to articulate the organization’s missions and goals to a large audience without much effort. Second, it allows for board members to see what community members are saying about the organization. Third, it gives potential volunteers and/or donors an easy way in to the organization.

These are just a few of the ways that social media engagement is essential.

Engaging board members with social media is the clear way forward. But, how do we do that? Here are few tips for getting your board engaged with social media:

Talk with your board members and ask them what social media platforms they are currently using and which they would be open to trying

Utilize board members existing skills and connections

Consider social media training for board members

Frame social media engagement as community outreach and not just one-sided “advertising”

Remember—it’s not just community outreach or public relations committees that should be enhancing the organizations public standing. Engagement and enthusiasm are essential traits of every nonprofit board member.

For our first Marketing Seminar Series this year we invited for-profit Cyclone Social’s Founder and President – Andrew Lamping. In the hour and a half brown bag lunch presentation, he provided some great words of wisdom and tips for marketing.

identify audience (listen for trends and what people are saying on social media)

All of these steps aim to build long term sustainability. Lamping suggests to work backward, from the bottom (identify audience) up (loyalty).

In addition, our guest speaker shared an advance marketing tip for exposing your audience to specific content – Facebook dark post or unpublished post ads. It is an ad post that does not show on your page. It is only visible to the audience you target in their news feed. This is a good tool to test different ads or content to difference audiences without flooding your page. Lamping was not able to get into the specific steps to create a Facebook dark post due to time. However, there are numerous videos on YouTube on how to create one.

Crowdfunding refers to any effort to raise money through donations from a large number of people. Crowdfunding websites allow individuals, organizations, and businesses to reach a wider audience in order to obtain donations and support. Crowdfunding websites also give individuals an easy way to contribute to their favorite organizations.

Why Should Nonprofits Use Online Crowdfunding?

There are numerous benefits to using online crowdfunding. First, it’s accessible to anyone with internet access. This is beneficial for organizations looking to expand their donor base or simply to make it easier for existing donors to give. Second, it’s fairly easy to start an online crowdfunding campaign. With crowdfunding websites (like Kickstarter and Indiegogo) on the rise, it’s becoming easier to create and maintain crowdfunding platforms. And third, online crowdfunding also works as an outreach platform and marketing tool.

Which Online Crowdfunding Website is the Best?

This isn’t a simple question. Different crowdfunding websites offer different benefits and services. There are a plethora of different websites but it’s important to understand how much of the donations will make it to your organization. Most crowdfunding websites charge a “platform fee,” which is charge for using their website. Most crowdfunding websites also charge a “credit card payment fee” which goes to the third-party payment processors (like Paypal).

What can nonprofit organizations do to engage college students in philanthropy?

There are a plethora of new and old ways that college students can participate in philanthropic efforts. While the philanthropic contributions from current college students may differ from traditional methods, they are none-the-less vital. So, what can your nonprofit organization do to engage passionate students in philanthropy? Here are some suggestions!

Find Us on Social Media
In my experience, the largest obstacle for college students to engage in philanthropic efforts is the lack of readily available resources. Social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) is by far the best way to reach college students. Sharing events, links to online donations, and information about local philanthropic efforts is a fantastic way to get information about nonprofits to college students. (We spend a lot of time on social media, if you hadn’t noticed.)

Interact With Us on Social Media
For college students, it’s not enough to see what organizations are doing—we want to feel involved! We want our voices heard. Posting on Facebook is a great start to engaging college students, but you can’t stop there. It’s important to engage with college students on social media—‘like’ Facebook status that mention you, tag event attendees in your Facebook and Twitter photos, retweet reactions to your events and programs.

Let Us Donate Online
Online shopping is a miracle. As a college student, it’s saved me time and energy that I simply don’t have. Online shopping is also phenomenal for nonprofits. Online donations offer an easy way for college students to contribute to local or national nonprofits without leaving the comfort of their beds. Additionally, offering monthly donation options is a great way to maintain a relationship with college students. I know I can’t donate $100 at one time, but I can definitely donate $10 a month throughout the entire year.

Work With Our Universities
Many colleges and universities offer service learning opportunities to students. Service learning focuses on civic responsibility and community involvement. There are few things better than helping a great cause while receiving course credit for it. Working with universities is a great way to introduce college students to what philanthropy is and how they can get involved.

Listen To Us
We’re young, passionate, and excited to help organizations and causes we care about. So, please, listen to us! Create opportunities for college students to contribute ideas to your organization—whether it be an online suggestion box, events on college campuses, or an online survey. This is a great way to gather new ideas and find new board members.

Through personal experience as a one-time corporate salesman-turned-successful entrepreneur, Andrew Lamping knows what it’s like to be stuck and what it takes to break free of a frustrating job and build an enterprise from the ground up. Channeling his inner genius in the world of modern communication, social media, and marketing, Lamping has revolutionized and transformed the faces of companies while building one of the most successful companies in the nation for social media and communication.

Andrew Lamping’s reputation and credibility comes from his work as the owner and founder of Cyclone Social, the fastest-growing social media company in the Midwestern united States, where he represents local, national, and international brands. Due to Cyclone Social’s marketing initiatives, many clients are #1 in the world in their respective industries, while others are turning their strategies into large-scale profits.

In his speaking engagements, seminars, strategic consulting and daily business Lamping has already helped a number of companies grow their businesses purely through social media. The success stories are endless and have allowed him to be recognized for his word-of-mouth marketing initiatives in multiple national publications.

Possessing a unique blend of entrepreneurship, youth, professional experience, and forward thinking, Lamping speaks with honesty and proficiency on topics designed to captivate audiences of every age and professional level. Lamping’s millennial mindset intrigues high school and college campuses, chambers and business networking groups, corporate boardrooms, summits and retreats. As an accomplished thought leader of his generation, Lamping brings together ideas, solutions, and energetic change while developing cutting-edge concepts we will contemplate, share, and use to improve ourselves for years to come.

What: Social Media: A True Story of Money, Power, Relationships, and Manipulation

The world of communication has changed forever. Your cellphone is a toolbox and social media is the tool. Your tools can build a castle, fix a broken Chevrolet, erect a skyscraper, or tear down and entire civilization. The way you choose to use your tools is the engineering, the blueprints, and the execution of the strategy. In this presentation, Andrew Lamping is going to explain how the world of social media really works. What you choose to do with this information is up to you.

Where: Allen County Public Library, Meeting Room C

When: Thursday April 21, 2016 11:30 – 1 pm

Format: Lunch and networking from 11:30 to 11:45, presentation from 11:45 to 12:45, and then Q&A, networking, and filling out evaluations from 12:45 to 1:00. *Please note you are welcome to bring your own lunch. Lunch will not be provided.